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Hey so I want to work in IT.
I have a Bachelors in Communications, i’ve worked in TV a bit and now i’m working in a restaurant.

Applying to entry level positions at mid and large companies hasn’t been working even though I have listed i’ve set up a MS Server 2016, Red Hat server, used to develop for a Wordpress site in PHP, and have taught myself some networking basics and active directory.

I’m considering going back to school to get a Masters in Management Information Systems or taking a course or two at community college to help me study for the CCNA certification. I’ve been told by numerous people other certs are not respected.

Opinions? Is there a better way to break in?
Thanks for reading - Ryan

12 Spice ups
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Experience - Volunteer, if necessary. Anything.

Certifications - Getting a CCNA will help you in most fields of IT. It couldn’t hurt and it’ll help get noticed on the resumes.

Degrees - Worst choice of the three.

Go forth, get experience and get certified and join the workforce!

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I don’t think you can compare a CCNA and a MIS , at all.

The big question is as usual, what’s your endgoal? Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

A master degree, usually only helps if you want to go into management, and for that, an MBA would be a better choice.

CCNA would be better for a technical role.

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CCNA is great if you want to work on Cisco gear … not so great if you don’t.

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If you can do it go for the Masters in Management Information Systems and while in college it will help you be more marketable to the entry level gigs in the Interview say

I am a grad student and in MIS here is my experience and what I want to do with the grad degree most companies will see you as affordable and one to mold to there standards do what ever you can finish the grad degree it will definitely help you…depending on where you live get a help desk job or a tech job at small pc company…or best buy tech anything to be around it …getting the MIS degree will make you privy to networking /server labs already built and ready to use to help you study for the certifications

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Masters in IT is a complete waste of money. Certs are too due to all the programs pumping out paper tigers left and right. Try for a help desk position at a small to medium company and work your way into a junior sue admin role somewhere else after you get experience. It won’t take much.

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[WARNING: GIGANTIC FRIGGIN’ BOOK APPROACHING]

TL;DR:

Don’t go for a degree in the hopes that it’ll boost your chance of getting hired. It won’t, because those reviewing your resume will see right through it. Redirect your focus to smaller organizations because your lack of experience is what’s holding you back, not your lack of credentials. Smaller orgs are a little more flexible and lenient about education/certification requirements than larger ones, because there’s a wider field of competition among job seekers for those roles. Get your experience with smaller businesses to pad your resume, then go for bigger orgs.

I have my master’s in MIS, and given what you’ve written, I agree that it’s the worst option for you.

I say this for three reasons:

  • A graduate degree has two legitimate purposes: either your career field requires it in order to advance because you’re already working in your career choice and it’s the next logical step (business management, teaching/other education or ed. administration) or your career field requires it in order to even begin working in it (law, medicine, tenure-track university instructor)
  • A master’s degree in a field in which you don’t already have years of experience is a waste of time and tuition dollars. A graduate degree in cases where it’s not a requirement for your career field should enhance your career, not get you into it (again, in cases where it’s not law or medicine or similar where there’s a prescribed path of education before you’re even allowed to work professionally).
  • MIS is a business degree, not a technology degree. In order for it to mean something in a career, you need to have business experience, not just technological.

IT is not a field that requires a graduate degree to get started. In fact, it doesn’t require any degree at all.

Conversely to popular misconception, not only is a master’s degree without experience a waste of time and money, it has the opposite effect of working against you. You don’t have practical experience, short of having set up sandbox environments at a very small scale. An MS you add to it will simply be ignored, because your resume will clearly show your lack of professional experience.

This means that you don’t get to actualize the value that can potentially come from a graduate degree if you’d have played your cards right. This is where we say it’s ill-advised to pursue a graduate degree if you don’t already have experience in the field: the semesters you spend in class and the money you spend in tuition won’t pay themselves back in greater job prospects. It’s just years of class time and thousands of dollars spent for no payoff.

Even for entry level positions at mid/large companies, they want practical experience. You probably noticed that in the job descriptions. “Must have xx years of experience in [technology1], [technology2], and [technology3]. Must be familiar with [whatever1], [whatever2]. Bachelor’s degree in CIS, MIS, or similar required.” They have bigger HR departments who’ll screen out a BA in Comm and restaurant experience before your app ever gets to the IT department.

If you don’t know someone who knows someone who can be your foot in the door, a smaller shop will likely be your more accessible entry in, to get that practical experience you’re lacking. It may not be glamorous and it’ll clearly take a lot more time to advance in the field, but you honestly need the resume-building experience more than you need an empty degree or certification.

After all, what good is a CCNA if you’ve never actually had to use the knowledge to put out a figurative fire in an IDF?

When people are telling you other certs are not respected, it tells me that they’re speaking from their own personal biases. Which other certs? And respected/disrespected by whom? IT is a very wide field and encompasses a lot.

I’d be willing to bet that I could pick out the flaws in their reasoning fairly quickly because railroading you toward one cert type is a disservice to you and your career goals. You may enjoy network fundamentals now, but what about in 3-5 years when you have more experience under your belt? Maybe it’s something you master in a year and find it dreary. You can punch down a jack with your eyes closed (which would be incredibly impressive if you can differentiate orange-white from orange with your eyes closed…) and Cisco CLI, you can do half-asleep. You ache for the opportunity to code something. Powershell something. Python something. Or maybe hardening the entry points to a farm of Linux Web servers.

Or maybe you discover a passion for buliding Web applications with C#.

A CCNA doesn’t really do much for you in those areas. But an MCSD would. My long-winded point here is to not artificially narrow down your opportunities before you’ve even had a chance to explore them.

When I entered the field of IT professionally in 1997, I never imagined for a second that I would be doing what I’m doing in 2017. I’m surrounded by databases – I’ve got SQL Server on one side, MySQL on another, and frickin’ PostgreSQL on yet another side. On top of that, I’ve got my hands in Jasper Studio Pro and IBM Cognos for report writing. And this is after I spent a year as SCCM administrator, crafting and deploying Windows task sequences, building out GPOs to complement them, and forced to learn bits of Powershell to do stuff I shouldn’t do by hand.

In 1997, the extent of my IT career was building custom PCs, swapping out bad RAM, and tweaking Windows 98 settings for optimum performance. In 2003, I got certified to repair Macs (my job at the time paid for it). Problems is that my organization got rid of most Macs by 2012 (and even before then, I wasn’t really doing anything because every Mac had 3-year AppleCare, so we just returned everything under warranty). So while I had almost 10 years of use out of my ACMT, it’s worthless now.

Given my point in my career, most common certs are useless to me. I don’t touch anything related to Cisco or networking, so CCxx is meaningless for me. Maybe MCSA/MCSE, but the only logical option is in SQL Server (which I’m still actually in the middle of). But that’s more for personal enrichment’s sake because of my career path and how it works; technical certs are secondary to degrees and experience in my industry.

My MIS degree (both undergrad and grad) will serve me better in my career choice because of my experience, not in place of.

5 Spice ups
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This is pretty bad advice…

  1. Degrees will open many doors in many different fields and many sectors…

  2. Professional Certifications will open only certain doors in the specific field

  3. Experience will only allow you to access that specific field.

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It’s not bad advice, and it’s extremely relevant for IT, which is what the OP is asking about.

In the IT world, degrees are essentially useless - they’re a tool to get past the hiring gatekeepers, but to the tech person actually doing the hiring they don’t mean a thing if you don’t have the experience to back up your knowledge. I can pretty much guarantee that 2 years of real experience working in IT will be more valuable to any technical hiring manager than a 4-year degree would be.

Certifications are kiiiinda in the same vein as degrees, though because they’re more specialized they do help a bit. But again, you could have all the certifications in the world, but with no real-world experience to back it up, the hiring manager doesn’t know whether you can actually do the work. Theoretical knowledge is great, but when people are hiring IT pros, they’re looking for someone they know can do the job.

As far as which certs…the CCNA is definitely a well-respected one, along with pretty much any of the other Cisco certs. For newbies to the IT world, the A+ (hardware), Net+ and Sec+ certs are pretty decent to show that you have a solid grasp of the basics.

Beyond that, I would highly recommend Bud’s first point above - get experience, and volunteering is an excellent way to do that if you’re unable to find a job in IT right away. Nonprofits are a great way to get a shoe-in - they often have very little budget, so often don’t have actual IT staff. You can also reach out to local mom-and-pop stores and restaurants and offer your services (though I’d charge stores/restaurants, but give a reduced rate due to their lower budget).

Also, join up with your local SpiceCorps! As with pretty much any job, networking is key - you are way more likely to find a job in IT through a friend or networking contact than through cold-calling recruiters or applying to random companies. Speaking of recruiters though, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hit up a couple recruiters and let them know what you’re looking for. While opportunities may not always pan out through recruiters, apply to everything you can find! Once you get in somewhere and can get a solid year or two of experience working in IT, moving to another position will be much easier.

Good luck :slight_smile:

5 Spice ups
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I.T, is not only about installing server OSe, basic networking and/or LDAP management…

There are so many things include (but not limited to the following)

  • email services (Exchange servers, Cloud Emails)

  • Database servers (SQL, Oracles etc)

  • ERP systems, HR systems

  • Server hardware, storage hardware

  • Virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix etc)

  • Networking (LAN, WAN, wireless LAN, fibre, iSCSI)

  • Cloud computing (Cloud Emails, Cloud ERP, SAAS, PAAS)

  • Security (Edge, Enterprise, Endpoint, Database, IDS, IPS, “internal” Data Leak Prevention)

  • End User computing (PC, Lappy, Workstations, Virtual Desktops, Cloud End-point computing)

  • Backups and DR

  • Policies and Budgeting

  • Licensing (MS “SA” “EAP” “EA”, Oracle, Cloud, DB, AutoCAD, Adobe)

If OP may not want “entry-level” especially when he is holding a degree already…pursuing a Masters’ would grant him entry into a management role.

There is no-end to accumulating experience in I.T. as the environment is always evolving and changing…even professional certs like MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, Project management etc are almost obsolete the moment we obtain them and it is time to renew or update them. Furthermore, many certification like MSCA and/or CCNA are only the basic level of their respective certification (MCSE & CCNP).

But again…I maybe very wrong, especially we do not really know OPs age…if near retirement or not wanting to move on to management or regional roles or that he likes the role he is and would like to further the role…

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  1. True, but IT is different. If you go through and obtain a degree in IT, after your four years, how current is the technology that you learned? Colleges are not the most adept institutions at updating their curriculum on the fly. Sure there are always exceptions, but they could still be teaching you MS stuff on Server 2003. How relevant is that? Maybe they’ve upgraded to 2008. When you come up, it’s likely that the tech you learned is already superseded. How many colleges offer curriculum that is actually practical or is it mostly theoretical?

Plus, you spend 3-4 years in college, spending a lot of money (unless you are getting GI Bill, or some free education) and putting yourself in debt. A masters degree will set you back more money and after two more years, you rack up what, $30k? When you could already be earning money, instead of losing money.

Again, this is in regards to IT. Granted, there are companies that require you to have a degree before they look at you, even for help desk. So unless you have experience, you may likely face starting at the bottom, working help desk for a bit.

One other thing. What is a degree and what does it mean? It means you spent X time to at least learn Y information. It doesn’t speak to your capacity for retention. It simply states that you had the minimal required scores to graduate from a program.

  1. Not true. A network certification is knowledge that is applicable to most areas. Security, same thing. Having knowledge of other aspects of IT, via certifcation, helps to enlighten you more to your own and can make you more attractive to a potential employer. Sure, if you are dedicated on pursuing a specialized IT field, certs in that specific area will be more relevant that others. But the lower, entry-level usually give you enough relevant concepts.

And again, all a certification means is that you had the relevant knowledge or memorized enough information to pass a test. Which is cheaper, a certification or a degree? Which will likely get you a better return on your investment?

  1. Again, Not true. Experience is something that you can quantify. If I’m experienced in one area, you probably can apply that knowledge to another area. There is a lot of areas in which IT can overlap and a little knowledge, from experience, is better that not knowing if you were exposed in a degree program or a certification with zero demonstrable experience.

If you are looking to go the managerial route, a masters may make sense, but that usually doesn’t pay off until you start reaching executive levels.

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Start with a help desk or CSR roll at a tech company. Learn the business, learn the tech, learn people skills and troubleshooting. If you still want to work in tech after two years proceed to the next level and training. There are many entry level opportunities. They are not easy and they are definitely not stress free.

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A master’s is no more a foot in the door for management than IT, if one doesn’t have documented experience on the resume. Would you hire a person to manage your staff if the only management experience they had was a few required courses during university study? Colleges love to puff up their grad students – especially in the business programs – with dreams of management and executive ranks right after graduation. Anyone who has spent any appreciable amount of time in the real working world knows that’s not true.

But colleges are often targeting their message to the kids who jump from 4 years of high school to 4 years of undergrad and probably right to the 2-3 years of graduate school, with barely anything more than a couple of summer internships as the limit of their professional exposure. The students don’t know any better, and the insulated environment of a university means that the instructors also don’t know any better.

The best instructors I had were not those with PhDs in their field, but ones who had master’s degrees in that topic of study AND taught part-time at night. Because their full-time day job was actually in that profession.

Finally, look at OP’s profile photo and his LinkedIn profile. They’re very clear indications of how old he is, and thus, his lack of experience (so far). This is why – in context – the idea of getting a master’s degree is premature for him. It’d be more realistic once he has a few years of business-world know-how under his belt and decides that management is something he wants to pursue. That’s the point of saying that a graduate degree right now is not an optimal choice given his current position.

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…AND get all possible certification including open water rescue diver, heavy machine gun operator & root canal plastic surgery (joke). For a very good reason: HR people who look for candidates check certification & Co BEFORE they bring in people for interview to talk to technical guys. So you don’t want to drop off the list just because two other guys have MSc & Cisco certification and you don’t.

…UNLESS you plan starting your own ISP & consulting company and you don’t need any certificates to here yourself :slight_smile: